


Of Sea Foam and Dragon’s Scales

by Cornerofmadness



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 13:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5092970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerofmadness/pseuds/Cornerofmadness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a boating excursion something miraculous shows itself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Sea Foam and Dragon’s Scales

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer** \-- Arakawa owns all  
>  **Author’s Note** \-- This was _supposed_ to be a sea monster story for a water monster prompt (and very loosely at that. VERY loosely). It is about as scary as a baby in a puppy costume. Figures. Thanks to for the beta (and no I didn’t use the punny title, not that mine is any less lame.)

XXX

 

“Fullmetal, are you still unwell?” Roy tried for a sympathetic look – Riza might shoot him otherwise and Miss Rockbell's throwing arm was nothing sneeze at. Still it was hard to swallow back his trademark smirk. Ed had been his usual rude obnoxious self all through Roy's first ambassadorial visit to Xing and had even encouraged his friend, now Emperor, Ling to dog pile on. It was hard to feel too sorry Ed was chumming the ocean so much that Roy was sure he'd be upchucking gears from his automail leg pretty soon. Everyone else was enjoying their day out on the emperor’s boat.

Ed muttered something like ‘Fuck off and die, jackass.’ He hadn't even attached the usual 'general' to the insult.

“Maybe more mint tea,” Al suggested.

“Or ginger,” Ling said, snapping his fingers. A servant appeared and Ling said something in Xing's singsong language that took Roy back to his earliest memories of his mother. He allowed himself a happy smile.

“How much longer will this trip be?” Ed hauled himself away from the ship's rail. Roy bet the young man was sorry he ever decided to go for a ride on the emperor's boat.

“Several hours.” Ling sounded apologetic.

“It could be worse,” Roy offered, watching flying fish go gliding by. How amazing were they?

“Don't jinx it.” Al wagged his finger at Roy.

“How, asshole?” Ed wiped his mouth as Winry slipped an arm around his waist. Her own waist had begun to thicken again with child number two. Their first, Zachery, was back in the castle with royal babysitters and Mei was too pregnant to come along with the group was with him as well. Roy was sure that Ed was sorry he hadn't stayed behind.

“The seas could be rough.” Roy made a wave-like motion with his hand. “We could have gone the sea route instead of taking the new intercontinental train all the way here.”

“You could have just thrown me overboard if we had tried that,” Ed moaned.

“Don't give him ideas.” Winry pulled Ed toward the center of the deck and sat him down on a huge coil of rope. “Ling, that tea?”

“They're coming with it.”

Roy turned away from Ed, walking to the rail. He was surprised how well he was doing on the ship. It wasn't as if he did this sort of thing every day himself. Riza strolled over, sliding an arm around him, leaning against his shoulder as she took in the view of the Xingese harbor.

“I know you're excited to be in Xing and maybe have a chance to get to see if you can find any of your mother's relatives,” she said. “But maybe you could enjoy Ed's discomfort a little less.”

“I'm being very nice to him,” Roy huffed. “He's suffering enough.”

“And when we get back to dry land you're never letting him forget this.” Riza tapped a finger on his hip.

He shot her a look. “That should be obvious.”

Riza pinched her brow. “Sadly.”

“It's exciting, though, being here. I've always wanted to see Xing.” That was an understatement. He had always wanted to visit but after he became the so-called Hero of Ishval and his military career took off like a firecracker there had never been time or opportunity. At least with Grumann running the country, Roy's role had expanded into ambassadorial territories. “I think I'll ask your grandfather to send us here for more than just a few weeks, maybe for a year as ambassadors so we can really explore.”

“I like the sound of that.” Riza embraced him hard. “I'll talk to him, too.”

“I want to see that temple of the cherry blossoms Emperor Ling was talking about. Alphonse has been there. He'd gladly take us. I know I don't ascribe to any faith but still, it sounds like something I need to see.” Roy found the Xingese architecture fascinating. It wasn’t something he usually spent much time studying but it was different and different was interesting.

“I thought it sounded lovely. I would like to see some of the art. I'd like to _try_ to make some of my own.”

Roy looked down at her, shocked. “I've never seen you paint. Alex Louis does wonderful art, have you ever seen it?”

Riza nodded. “I have. Alchemists are often good artists. Alphonse is. Edward less so but I think we can take into account his lost arm.”

“I wonder if he could do better now that he has it back.” Roy glanced back to where Winry fussed over the young man while Alphonse stood at the opposite rail with Ling and Ran Fan. He still couldn't believe it was possible to give up the ability to use alchemy but Roy knew Edward would have done it without a second thought to save his brother. As, in fact, he had. 

“Of course Edward has your patience, and that doesn't lend itself to fine art.” Riza smiled sweetly.

He added some vinegar to that honey with a scowl. “So why have I never seen you paint?”

“Father taught me when he thought I might have some interest in alchemy, and then it was just something I had that was mine alone.”

“Like your reading choice.” He arched an eyebrow and Riza elbowed him.

“You snooped and you learned something you didn't want to.”

Roy snorted. “I've learned a lot of things I didn't want over the course of the years but you reading girly romances might just be the worst.”

Her elbow found his gut again, but Ed's plaintive whine cut through the pain.

“Is the ocean getting rougher?”

Roy looked at the waves. They pitched higher than the bow of the boat. The prow slid down into a trough. “Yes,” Roy said, but Ed was already up and running for the rail. Roy tugged Riza further away just in case there was anything left in Ed to be violently expelled. The tea he had just drank, for instance.

The water got rougher as Ed added tea to it. Roy turned to Ling and asked. “Is this quick change in conditions natural?”

Ling shrugged. “I don't think so.” He deferred to Ran Fan who might have been trained more in practical things than the emperor.

“Something is different. Don't you feel it, my lord?” Ran Fan asked.

Ling tilted his face into the wind. Alphonse joined him. Roy tried to feel it but he, like Alphonse, had a different form of alchemy, a different sort of senses. He didn’t have the natural ability to scene the ‘dragon flow’ of alchemy like the Xingese could.

“What is it?” Roy asked.

“Oh hell!” Ed stumbled back from the rail. “Look!”

“What is in the water?” Winry asked, leaning forward. Riza did the same.

Roy peered into the sea as Ling and Alphonse ran over. A hump, sleek and deep blue-green, peeked through the waves before a horned head broke the surface. 

“It's a monster,” Winry gasped.

“Monsters aren't real,” Ed said, clapping his hands together. “A chimera maybe.” He stared at his palms as if he was shocked nothing happened.

Of course, clap alchemy was reflex for Edward. Roy felt a pang of pity. Losing his alchemy might have hurt as bad as losing the arm and there was no fix for it. He wondered if Ed could learn alkahestry but that was a thought for another time, a time that didn't have a sea serpent swimming in it.

“Everyone back from the rail,” Roy barked, noticing Ran Fan hustling Ling toward the center of the ship. “Alphonse!”

“Ready.” Alphonse clapped his hands together.

Roy did likewise. The ocean didn’t provide enough matter to make a shield like earth did. The creature rose higher. Were those fins? Wings? “The emperor's security insisted I leave behind my gloves. Anyone have a lighter or a match?”

“Mustang, if you transmute the water to hydrogen and oxygen, can you control the explosion so we don't end up floating with flinders in that thing's waters?” Ed asked.

“Do we even need to blow it up?” Alphonse watched the glittering scaly thing. “It doesn't seem to be harming us. What _is_ it?”

“Dragon,” Ling called as Roy and Alphonse raised a curtain of water between the creature and the ship. The creature swam higher. Yes, maybe those were wings.

“There are no such thing as dragons!” Ed argued, looking somehow less sick. Figured.

“Roy, I wasn't allowed to bring my guns either,” Riza said, her voice tight with worry. She still took her duty to protect him as seriously as the day she made her vow to do so.

“It might not be a problem. I think Alphonse is right. It doesn't look menacing. I remember the stories mom told me of dragons. They are good,” Roy said, wondering if this could possibly be a dragon. Surely Edward was right about that.

“A sign of prosperity. It could be a blessing for my rule,” Ling said cheerily, waving at the creature.

“No such thing as dragons!” Ed insisted. “It has to be a chimera.”

“Who would create and release such a thing here? That's not how alkahestry works,” Alphonse said. “We should leave it alone if it’s not bothering us.”

“A wait and see approach isn't a bad way to handle this.” Roy nodded.

The creature lifted fully out of the water and it sailed over the boat. They all fell silent, watching it glide on long, leathery wings the color of sea foam. Sunlight glittered gold against its blue-green scales. It dived again under the waves which eventually calmed.

“Dragon?” Alphonse asked again.

“Chimera,” Ed insisted but without much conviction. 

Roy ignored them, watching the spot where the dragon had disappeared. His memory danced with his mother's tales of them. He could almost hear her voice, a rarity for him as he lost his parents when he was so very young. Riza slipped her arm back around his waist.

“That was amazingly beautiful,” he said barely above a whisper. 

“It was.” She kissed him. “Those dragon statues you were eyeing in the market and I said I didn't think you had a place for them back home? I was wrong.”

Roy smiled. “Help me pick one out when we get back.”

Riza kissed him again. Roy wondered if anyone back home would believe this story. Maybe he should stick with Ed's chimera explanation but in his heart he knew it was a dragon.


End file.
